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Coastal upwelling has a major influence over the affected region's local climate. This effect is magnified if the ocean current is already cool. As the cold, nutrient-rich water moves upwards and the sea surface temperature gets cooler, the air immediately above it also cools down and is likely to condensate, forming sea fog and stratus clouds.
A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Worldwide there is about 620,000 kilometres (390,000 mi) of coastline. Coastal habitats extend to the margins of the continental shelves, occupying about 7 percent of the ocean surface area.
Because land is nearby, there are large discharges of nutrient rich land runoff into coastal waters. Further, periodic upwellings from the deep ocean can provide cool and nutrient rich currents along the edge of the continental shelf. As a result, coastal marine life is the most abundant in the world.
Coastal geography is the study of the constantly changing region between the ocean and the land, incorporating both the physical geography (i.e. coastal geomorphology, climatology and oceanography) and the human geography (sociology and history) of the coast.
They keep coastal waters healthy by absorbing bacteria and nutrients, and slow the speed of climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide into the sediment of the ocean floor. Seagrasses evolved from marine algae which colonized land and became land plants, and then returned to the ocean about 100 million years ago.
The term coastal zone is used to refer to a region where interactions of sea and land processes occur. [10] Both the terms coast and coastal are often used to describe a geographic location or region located on a coastline (e.g., New Zealand's West Coast, or the East, West, and Gulf Coast of the United States.)
The winds drive surface water to the right of the wind flow, that is offshore, which draws water up from below to replace it. The upwelling further cools the already cool California Current. This is the mechanism that produces California's characteristic coastal fog and cool ocean waters. As a result, ocean surf temperatures are much colder in ...
Marine geology or geological oceanography is the study of the history and structure of the ocean floor. It involves geophysical, geochemical, sedimentological and paleontological investigations of the ocean floor and coastal zone.